Monday, November 25, 2013

Keywords: traditional acrylic on paper cover 90x66cm illustration for the cover of a novel by Stephen Baxter "Anti-Ice" published by The Belial lunar crater floor is the Dedalus photographed by the crew of Apollo 11 in 1969

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The new video game project Celistic: Brascot 6 is applying to the online fundraising platform IndieGoGo. The main producer and author of the project, Dennis Langley, kindly agreed to tell us about the creative idea surrounding the game, its perspectives and, more importantly, his opinion on the chances for the Russian project to gain the support of gamers and crowd funding fans around world.

Q: Dennis, is it true that Celistic / Brascot 6 videogame will become an anticipated sequel of your literary project Celistic which is still developing even today?

A: Yes, it is. In 2007 I wrote my first sci-fi story in the Celistic star system. Last year I published the first of three planned books – Celistic: Book 1 which is about humanity’s life and struggles in another star system. The main characters of this book are space pirates who are drawn against their will into an interplanetary conflict. While creating this book I was challenged with not only creating the new world in words, but also with visualizing it.
I worked with 2D Artists to create many illustrations and concept-art. These became the basis for theCelistic comic book series. By the way, the fact that Marvel Comics, a world-renowned comic book publisher, expressed interest in Celistic, gives us another reason to believe this project will be met with success.

Q: You mentioned a Celistic trilogy. When can we expect the sequels to Book 1?

A: It’s a little bit early to set terms for the other two books. But what I can say now is that in the second book the story will be focused on our main character – the space pirate Brendon Frost. He makes a decision to protect humanity but gets betrayed by his best friend and finds himself on the planet Gabion that is artificially created by aliens. In the third book his adventures will continue. Brendon will discover the aliens’ secret plans to exterminate humanity and he must do everything in his power to stop them.

Q: The first book is stuffed with events and characters. Which of the stories will be realized in the forthcoming game?

A: The story line takes place in 2574 on planet Sovran which is a part of Celistic stellar system and is the main supplier of energy resources. The planet is protected with an orbital shield which is maintained by 92 stations. The planet can be conquered only via full shield disconnect by planet side infiltration. Syphes, aggressive minded space settlers, decide to enter the planet through the main station which is Brascot 6. This is the main game location. It’s a great city-factory with an enormous number of industrial facilities and external environments to explore.

The main character, Benson Miles, works in the station’s security service. During the ‘Day of Planet Colonization’ celebrations, Benson is taking his post and suddenly gets in the middle of events. Because of an unexpected explosion of an impulse bomb on Brascot 6, the main reactor is disconnected which leads to the failure of the orbital shields. The Saiphs’ plan to invade the planet succeeds.

During the course of the game Benson understands how imminent the threat to Brascot 6 is. Struggling against the enemy Saiphs and space pirates, finding betrayers along the way, and saving loved ones become Benson’s main concerns. His mission is also complicated by the fact that each of his foes has his own plans and agendas.

Celistic / Brascot 6 is a post-apocalyptic video game in the Epic Action / TPS (Third Person Shooter) category with with RPG elements. We also provide the possibility to upgrade your hero’s abilities via chips which can be found in locations during the game. This will encourage players to carefully explore all twelve levels of the game and to spend time thinking about what, when and how to improve there hero’s capabilities. In addition there are arcade-like games and mini-games that are required to be completed before opening or activating items.

More than this, each of twelve levels can be played in a non-linear way. Wherein, depending on how the player finishes a previous level, the story changes and the next level also changes to accommodate the story line. The player’s goal is to find the roots of the events happening in Brascot 6. This is a popular type of model used in story driven games. For example, this is a similar model used in the popular Dead Space series.

THE ACTIONS WILL TAKE ON A HUGE LOCATION. HERE WILL BE ABLE TO VISIT THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES, RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS, PRODUCTION HALLS AND MUCH MORE.

Q: What seemed to be the most important for you during the development?

A: The development team aimed to create a holistic future world and that’s able to immerse the player in an alternate reality. We felt it was important to develop a flexible and coherent design which would cause the player to understand the role of his/her character, and to use that character’s skills and powers to resolve any situation via a diverse choice of possible solutions.

This game is full of stories and unexpected twists. Every player has the opportunity to untangle their own possibilities, choices and resulting consequences. The game’s story line doesn’t dictate actions to the player, it just sets a general context: he’s the only one who can save the planet from destruction while at the same time being forced to navigate complex interrelations. Moreover, giving a player a wide range of choices, we decided to mask all the crisscrossed moments. I hope we’ll be able to keep the plot tense during all portions of gameplay.

FOR CONDUCTING THE COMBAT, MOVING FROM ONE LOCATION TO ANOTHER AND PASSING THROUGH LABYRINTS THE HERO WILL HAVE THE POSSIBILITY TO USE A BIG NUMBER OF OBJECTS FROM AROUND: THE FURNITURE, THE EQUIPMENT, ELEMENTS FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDINGS.

Q: Dennis, where did the idea to apply to IndieGoGo.com come from?

A: First of all, crowd funding opens up many new possibilities to fund private projects such as Brascot 6. Kickstarter.com, another popular fundraising platform, used the crowd funding model to generate $83 million for various projects on their website.
The Celistic project has existed for 6 years already. During this time it has gained fans who have waited for both sequels in the cosmic trilogy and for the video game based on the book. Last year we tried to make a demo by ourselves using the Unity 3D engine. Unfortunately, the quality of graphics which resulted from that engine lagged behind what’s currently available in the market. That’s why we decided to move on to the 3D Game Engine UDK, which is based on the Unreal 3D engine.

Our goal with IndieGoGo is to raise at least $400,000. This money is necessary to develop and publish the game in to the marketplace. We have an international team of the best 2D/D artists, as well as programmers from the American company Elemental-Labs Inc. who have a valuable experience in game development and are ready to join us. Today almost 75% of preliminary work is finished including developing the game story, concept art, locations, characters, weapons, etc. We forecast that if the crowd funding campaign is successful, we’ll should be able to release the official game in 15 months (May, 2015).

Q: What kind of bonuses have you prepare for backers?

A: We created a series of rewards to say ‘thank you’ to those who back our project and want us to succeed. Our backers will have the opportunity to gain many different rewards that are divided into three categories. The first one is ‘digital pack’ which includes digital copies of all published comic books, art and concept books, as well as a copy of the game.

The second category of rewards includes printed editions of the comics, sketches, art books, and a copy of the game on a license disk (includes delivery). In addition backers will receive a t-shirt and badges with the game’s emblems.

For third-level backers we provide (beside to the items above) a possibility to gain ‘Associate Producer’ credit, meaning a possibility to set advertising inside the game, create personal characters, place backer’s name on a game object, as well as 3D copies of the main characters.

In closing, we’re very excited to announce our IndieGoGo campaign for Brascot 6 is underway, and look forward to spreading the word and working with the community to drive support for our project!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Daniel's final 3D design of the Flying Wing / Aircraft Carrier for "Captain America: The First Avenger".
Modeled in Alias and rendered in Bunkspeed. With conceptual camouflage, not used in the final movie.